Category: World

Even though the presidential candidate hopeful currently leading the charts, Mitt Romney, has said publicly he “supports” legal immigration and that he wants to “end illegal immigration so that legal immigration can be protected”, he has not given much detail of what that “support” would actually entail.

As a campaign promise on New Year’s Eve, Romney vowed that if elected President of the United States he would veto any type of Dream Act bill, fence the border and go after the employers that hire the undocumented “as much as the government currently goes after employers that don’t pay taxes…” (which may mean his administration will be relaxed in this area).

Romney, who is supported by anti-immigrant bully, Texas Senator Lamar Smith (R-TX), expressed he would give a “pass” to those who serve in the military but would never allow in-state tuition to youth who came to this country undocumented, even if they came as children and were brought by their parents.

Video: Romney speaks about immigration

A Pew Hispanic Center report (December, 2011) stated that nine-in-ten (91%) Latinos support the DREAM Act, legislation that would permit young adults who were brought to the U.S. illegally when they were children to become legal residents if they go to college or serve in the military for two years.

The same report said that even though 59% Latinos disapprove of the way the Obama administration is handling deportations of unauthorized immigrants, in a hypothetical match-up against former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Obama wins 68% to 23% among Latino registered voters.

Romney’s latest declarations on the Dream Act and his association with the Lamar Smith’s of the world will ultimately hurt him and make the 2012 election an easy win for President Obama, who is clearly not a true BFF of immigrants. Pero… to us Latinos, ultimately, más vale malo conocido… que pésimo por conocer.

First, it was Perry who got heat from fellow GOP presidential candidates for charging undocumented young students in-state tuition and having the erroneous (or was it on purpose?) idea to call it the Texas Dream Act, which confused everyone and made them believe the governor is indeed a supporter of the actual DREAM Act, which clearly offers more than a discounted college tuition.

Now it is Newt Gingrich, who somehow gave the wrong impression (or was it on purpose too?) during the latest GOP presidential debate that he is on the side of comprehensive immigration reform.

Just to clarify here, Gingrich’s proposed path to legality would be offered to undocumented immigrants who have lived in the country for 25 years or more and have established community and family ties.

Let’s take our calculators and look into some quick numbers before we proclaim Newt Gingrich is pro-immigrant.

Ready? Now, this would apply to people who entered the country on or before 1986.

But let’s see how many people fall under this exciting proposal by the rising star of the GOP.

According to the nonprofit procon.org there were about two million undocumented immigrants in 1982. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 provided amnesty to an estimated 3 million people –a New York Times actually put the number at 2.8 million: 1.7 million under a general amnesty, plus 90 percent of the 1.3 million that applied under a special program for agricultural workers.

So… Gingrich’s proposed “path to legality” is an offer to almost no one.

At a book signing event on Friday in Naples, Florida, the Republican pre-candidate said that he was not for amnesty for anyone, only a path to legality for those who have been in the country 25 years or more. This path however he suggested should be determined by a community board who would decide which undocumented immigrants stay and which go, which were part of the fabric of society, volunteered, went to church and had children, and which did not.

Like the 25-year idea, I sure hope this is not the way things are decided.

Video: Newt Gingrich not offering amnesty. Although he has offered mainly the usual talking points: he looks for a secured border and to make English the official language; there are a few things he has said that could be rescued and should be implemented, such as offering an H1B visa to all foreign individuals graduating from math, science and engineering degrees in the U.S., instituting a guest worker program, and simplifying the system for obtaining visas.

If birthers had it their way, most second generation immigrants could not ever serve as U.S president or vice president.

If birthers had it their way, only people who fall under their definition of “natural-born” citizens could be elected president of the United States of America. This is because according to birthers to be a natural-born citizen you had to be born in the U.S. to U.S citizens.

Rubio, a Republican senator supported by the GOP and favored by the Tea Party has been deemed ineligible by birthers under Article 2 of the Constitution, which reads “no person except a natural born citizen … shall be eligible to the Office of President.”

“Senator Marco Rubio is not a natural born Citizen of the United States to constitutional standards. He was born a dual citizen of both Cuba and the USA. He is thus not eligible to serve as the President or Vice President of the United States per Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution. He can be a great U.S. Senator but cannot constitutionally serve as President or VP,”Kerchner says.

The question of parents’ citizenship is twofold idiotic… make it threefold bs.

First, because immigrants can choose or not choose to become citizens of the United States –it is a free choice and not a requirement to be legally in the United States.

Secondly; because it disqualifies a large portion of the population, and a great deal of past presidents of this great country, who were, in fact, second generation immigrants.

In the third place, children born to foreign parents in the U.S would have to apply for citizenship in the other country to acquire dual citizenship, you need to register. And even though some foreign countries recognize dual citizenship, the United States does not… and neither does Cuba. If you were born in the U.S. the citizenship that counts is the one registered in the United States.

“Except for under some rather extraordinary circumstances, if you are born in the United States, you are a natural born citizen of the United States. It seems that some folks only want to follow the Constitution when it is convenient for their point of view. The Constitution is an inclusive document rich with rights and freedoms, even though some wish that it was used to exclude and deny,” said Rivlin.

The U.S. Census Bureau reports that 36.7 million of the nation’s population (12 percent) are foreign-born, and another 33 million (11 percent) are native-born with at least one foreign-born parent in 2009, making one in five people either first or second generation U.S. residents.

The Census Bureau also reported that more than half of the immigrants were noncitizens (58 percent).

“This is lunacy. None of the first 12 or so presidents were born to “citizens” of the U. S. because there wasn’t a U. S. when they were born. Martin Van Buren was the first president born after the country was a country and his first language wasn’t English because his parents were Dutch. Good Grief, “says Jane Primerano a journalist and administrator with the New Jersey Foundation for Open Government.

Richard B. Wales explains the matter in this way: “The term “natural born citizen” is not used anywhere else in the Constitution, and it has never been the subject of any federal court ruling. Hence, its exact meaning could be subject to controversy. While some have suggested that perhaps a “natural born citizen” must have been born on US territory (i.e., in keeping with the definition of a citizen given in the 14th Amendment) — and news reports dealing with presidential eligibility almost invariably misstate the rule in this manner — the majority opinion of legal experts seems to be that the term refers to anyone who has US citizenship from the moment of his or her birth — i.e., someone who did not have to be “naturalized” because he/she was born “natural” (i.e., born a citizen).”

Even though birthers are disregarded as crazy right wingers with no inference in the political discourse, their thoughts do permeate those of the leaders and potential leaders of the country. In other words, if it happens to Barack Obama, Marco Rubio or Bobby Jindal, it can definitely happen to any of the 33 million second generation Americans who have been told that anyone who is born in this country can grow up to be the president. And that’s why if you want to vote for Pedro this nonsense needs to be stopped.

While the Other 99% speak up in desperation, President Obama is campaigning

Here’s a question for our readers: do you think it’s fair for taxpayers who are currently employed and for the unemployed who were formerly taxpayers that President Barack Obama is campaigning while pretending to do his job?

I got a letter from Jim Messina, from the Obama 2012 headquarters explaining how almost one million people have donated to the campaign. Judge for yourselves:

Here’s what you should know about what we’ll report to the FEC tomorrow:

+ In the third fundraising quarter of this year, 606,027 people donated to this campaign — even more than gave in the record-breaking previous quarter.

+ Those people gave more than 766,000 total donations — 98 percent of them $250 or less, at an average amount of $56. That’s more than twice as many donations than we had at this point in the historic 2008 campaign.

+ We are focused on building infrastructure that will help us win in 2012. And each quarter we set a combined goal for the campaign and our allies at the Democratic National Committee. We far exceeded our goal of $55 million this quarter between the two organizations.

+Together, Obama for America and the DNC raised more than $70 million. And it all happened during a summer when the President was focused on doing the job he was elected to do — a summer when we had to cancel a series of fundraising events and ask everyone to dig a little deeper.

A USA Today article from mid-August said that President Obama had “headlined 127 fundraising events for himself and others, significantly outpacing the fundraising activity of the previous five presidents during their first terms.” The claim was based on research by Brendan Doherty, an assistant professor of political science at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. Doherty had examined fundraising efforts going back to President Carter.

According to the research, the closest was George W. Bush, with 88 fundraisers by August of the year before elections.

The efforts, which are distracting the president from his duties, especially from focusing on getting the country out of the economic disaster we are all living, have only raised $70 million, a far cry from the record $745 million collected by Obama in 2008.

In case you are wondering, An AP report places former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as the leader in the Republican field in fundraising, pulling in more than $18 million in his first three months of campaigning.

President Obama has said he understands the frustration of the Occupy Wall Street and the two-hundred and something similar protests throughout the country. But he has been quick to add that it is the Republicans fault, since they won’t support anything he proposes.